Ford ALMOST Made a "SuperBird" for NASCAR in 1996 With Lincoln Parts..Here's Why It Never Happened
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Huge thank you to the legendary Don Miller at the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame museum in Mooresville NC for telling us this epic story and hanging onto this prototype from his days as Penske South president. Some may know John Andretti tested a Lincoln Mark VIII bodied Winston Cup car at Charlotte in 1996 and that never made it to race day....BUT...the story does not end there! Before the blob eye Taurus took the track in 1997 there was almost a whole new car created by Ford just for NASCAR racing!
Retro Themed NASCAR Merch!
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Retro Themed NASCAR Merch!
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Stuff like this just makes me wonder how different things could have been. If you love racing history like this make sure you subscribe and check out the “racing history nerd zone” playlist on the channel! Stapletonautoworks.com
That Taurus in the parking lot has me wanting to know the story. Ass end is defiantly different.
I love the what if game when it comes to racing history, so many different avenues you could go down
It’s been 2 months and still no video about the mysterious experimental silver Taurus. When are you going to post a video about it?
I would like to know the story of the sable taurus in the parking lot.. I grew up with nascar crewchief Robert"Booty"Barker and I believe when he was attending college at old Dominion University he may have been part of the aero dynamics crew who worked on the developement of the ford taurus in the wind tunnels of nasa langley base in Hampton Virginia.. maybe you could track down a story on that car , I will assure you it had the goods to make a great story.. as told by booty.. as always enjoy your channel
@Stapeton42: I live in Windsor,Ontario,Canada which is right across the river from Detroit & obviously Detroit is the automotive capital of America & Windsor is the automotive capital of Canada & we have the big 3 factories here with Chrysler,Ford & GM,. Windsor use to have an oval track called “Checkered Flag Speedway” but it closed down in 1992. So the nearest paved oval track to Windsor is the 1/2 mile at Delaware Speedway which is Canada’s oldest paved oval track. Anyways my point here as this video is about the Ford Lincoln car, in Canada back in the 80’s,90’s & up until 2006 we had the touring “Cascar Super Series” which were fibreglass bodied stock cars with Dodge,Ford,Pontiac & Chevy cars & huge car counts like the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Anyways there was also the Cascar sportsman series which was a series that ran just at their local tracks weekly & there was a few guys that ran a Ford Lincoln stock car. Cheers from Canada
That generation of Taurus was an awful-looking road car and looked even worse as a NASCAR. I'm curious to hear the story about the one out back, though!
I knew a guy who ran a Taurus bodied Pro Stock and it was sponsored by "Clee Motors".......so naturally, it was the "Clee Taurus"
Taurus was called "tortois" lol
The 98-99 Taurus NASCAR body wasn’t horrible in my opinion, but the 2000-2005 nose and tail pieces looked awful.
In my opinion ford shouldve never stop making the thuderbird
First gen of the new, sleek Thunderbird and its sister the Cougar were the best.
@Dean Ladue It was a 3.9 liter V8 from Jaguar. The 4.6 was a very solid engine that gets a lot of flak because of the 5.4
They did make the "retro" styled T-Bird in the early 2000s, but it wasn't cheap and the 4.6 V8 was plagued with problems. Ended up being more trouble than it was worth to keep building.
When sales numbers fall, cars get cancelled or replaced. The Thunderbird was at a point where it made no sense. It was neither a family car, nor a sports car. At the time it was finally cancelled, people were buying family cars, sports cars and the SUV craze was just starting to take off. Cars that lacked identity and sales, got cancelled. The only way Ford could have justified keeping the Thunderbird around, would have been to repurpose it to compete directly with the Corvette again, which they don't actually want to do.
I agree
By gosh Mitch you keep knocking it out of the park with these interviews.. Don Miller a legend during the Miller Lite days should've asked him about the legendary "midnight car" driven by Rusty Wallace... keep up this kinda great work
Thank you Jason! Hopefully Don will make some more videos with us
Kranefus/Haas also built a Mark VIII but kept the Continental rear deck with the rear spoiler following the contour of the hump. It put the spoiler higher in the center and gained downforce. This same idea was used on the later "Intimidator" Monte Carlos with great success obviously. The team unloaded it at Charlotte in full Kmart livery on purple paint and John Andretti drove it. IIRC, it was as fast as the current Thunderbird right out of the box. I believe this would have been a very successful car and again, if memory serves me, NASCAR was good with it. Then Ford changed their corporate mind and decided to keep Lincoln as its luxury division. A missed opportunity IMHO.
Would love to hear the story of the Taurus.
I wanna hear more about the Taurus. That thing has a big ol butt stuck on it. Same thing that he said about the Mark7 though, not enough trunk to make downforce, I can't tell exactly what they did, but I'm sure its twice as tall at the trunk as a normal taurus.
I think that's a Ford escort deck lid and taillights grafted onto the back of the Taurus. It's definitely taller than normal.
Def taller deck lid and the rear bumper was more flat no pertrusion below trunk also
Damn Taurus looked like it had the newer escort tail lights, hell yea man this back story videos for all brands is fkn awesome. These are a part of racing history 95% of us have never heard or would have ever known without you bringing it to us, im a die hard Ford guy and never knew any of this with the Lincoln as a race car. I cant go to car Museums, last one they almost ran me off because i cant just look at the outside and be happy, i was sliding under them looking at what made them work vs todays stuff so they got pissed and we argued then the big 300lb guy told my little 120lb ass i best get to stepping so stepping i did.
Now I went to some of those museums in 2012 and I just asked them if I could look at some of the details of the cars and they let me do it. Granted it was on a weekday and hardly anyone was there, but I found everyone to be pretty friendly and nice to let me take pictures and stuff up close of some of the cars. I just made sure not to touch anything.
@bravesws95 Yeah search Google images for a 96 Taurus with a side view. That silver one has some drastic alterations to the trunk lid and quarter panels. Ford probably could have sold them like that advertising extra ten cubic feet of trunk capacity.
it's the entire rear end of that Taurus
If that car made it to the track. Chevy & Dodge would have been crying to NASCAR about Ford's unfair advantage.
In the late 90s the monte was WAAAY better looking than the taurus, but the grand prix looked best
Interesting point on the rear spoiler. The 2000-2002 Monte Carlos had a pretty similar (not as dramatic) hump in the rear spoiler as the 37 car shown. And, yes, we need to know more about the big booty Taurus!
It’s a shame you had to grow up in the Taurus days. When I was a kid I got to watch Bob Glidden and Bill Elliott clean house with their 80’s Thunderbird’s. My mom had to buy a T-Bird after watching Bill Elliott lap the field twice at Talladega.
Man that’s a cool car so glad someone like you are out there documenting the history of Nascar keep up the good work
I've never seen this before, though I remember John Andretti being a big advocate as the then-current Monte Carlo was absolutely beating up on the Fords.
I worked in Ford Body CAD in the nineties. I remember there was some work being done on a T-bird roofline that was a good bit lower than the stock vehicle. This story reminded me of that and how the two could be related. Cool story Stapleton
I've owned a few Mark VIII's and have a '95 as my fun car in the garage. Trust me many of us knew all about this car when it was out and couldn't understand Ford/Lincoln built such a car and held it back.
Really enjoyed watching Bill Elliot driving the thunder bird. Agreed the Monte Carlo was a cool race car. Would like to see the story of the Taurus that is outside.
I love your Nascar videos. You really do a great job of getting the history. I have been into Nascar since the 60's and I have a 89 Iroc Z and a 04 Intimidator Monte Carlo. Keep up the good work. I watch all of your videos.
Thank you David we appreciate you
i think it would have been the Mercury Marauder and it would have been an absolute monster in its first season and then Mr. Bill France would step in and do what he did to Gordon's T-Rex and rewrite a bunch of rules around that particular car to either ban it or remove its advantage
Probably 😂
Cool! Love to hear about racing history, this rocks! Glad to see you two exploring the NASCAR background and documenting it for all of us. Always with you & Logan, & keep up the excellent video content! Thanks man!
Would definitely love to hear the story behind the Taurus because it’s clearly stretched out in the back and to me it looks like it has lights from an escort 🤨 depending something interesting going on there
I already see some differences in the Taurus outside, so naturally I'd love to hear about it.
It would have been very interesting to actually see it on the track and to see how fast it would have been I suspect it would have been the wing car of its era I would like to hear the Taurus story I would have called it Lincoln Daytona 👍👍👍
I had a 93 Mark 8 in the 90's and loved it. It was fast on the highway and smooth riding. Amazingly it got great gas mileage on the highway, not so much in town. I'd heard rumors of a possible Cup car in NASCAR at the time, and now I know the rest of the story.
I went to that museum years ago with my grandpa and my uncle. When I heard the story of that Lincoln I thought it was one of the coolest pieces of racing history.
Excellent story!! I really appreciate you bringing NASCAR history to light. You definitely should post the Taurus video!
Cool interview! That car is very interesting. Looks good. Imagine if it could have been raced.
I fell in love with the old school tbirds years ago. In fact I'd love to restore and run a NASCAR tbird. What's the deal with that old Taurus? Didn't even look I like a SHO.....
I really love this kind of content, its so important that these stories are recorded and put out there for prosperity, thankyou for continuing to do this content ! #SAWChequeredFlagSquad (C.F.S) watching every video to the very end !
Another great video in the discussion/interview series. Well done again. This truly isn’t you father’s Lincoln. The rear bumper lines, with the comparable photo you posted, drove it home. Love to see a video on the Taurus, if you’re up to it. Just wanted to add, no matter the brand you take the time to give it respect. Greatly appreciated.
I`m definately down for the story on that silver car! Back then I wasnt a Ford fan either, (team #3 forever!) but I do like the cool stories of how and why things happened, no matter the driver, team or brand! Keep `m coming, I`ll keep watching, liking and commenting!
Great video Mitch. At the time, Ford's decision to switch to the Taurus in '98 was extremely disappointing to me as a 16 year old fan, especially because it was getting axed just in time for Nascar's 50th anniversary. The Thunderbird was so much better looking than the new Taurus (even as a blue oval fan, I can't see how anyone would actually spend money on that Taurus body style). The Thunderbird was the last vehicle in Nascar (at that time) which was still a V8 RWD platform in street car form. Growing up, I was a big fan of Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Davey Allison, and Alan Kulwicki, and those T-Birds were some awesome looking machines. You bring up a fascinating point at 14:30 - as a young kid, you probably figured Ford was the hokiest thing on the track (and the street) because of the lame choice of body styling. Being a little older, I got to enjoy the T-Bird setting records at Daytona and Talladega and was the car my favorite drivers and teams chose. By the late 90's, there was no doubt the Monte Carlo and Grand Prix were much better looking race cars. That being said, I'd still love to see a video about the old Taurus sitting out behind the museum. Keep up the great work!
Thanks man! We appreciate your insight
What a shame Ford/Lincoln bowed out on that really cool car. Cadillac on the other hand stepped up in the last decade and cut loose with a family of VERY COMPETATIVE RACE cars that raced on Sunday and sold like HOTCAKES on Monday!
Ford Taurus SHO?? Very cool to hear the OG’s talk about racing history.
I’m thinking RWD, just to see if it worked.
@Ryu rc hmm... RWD then?
I had a SHO, twin turbskis and a 6 speed manual. That thing would fly man
Honestly I thought the tail light and trunk were both up about 8 inches compaired to a normal one. The whole trunk doesn't slope off like normal.
I remember hearing about these cars being tested. But went with the Taurus instead
Hell ya Mitch & Logan, killing it! Loving these types plus the LSXCalade, Monte Carlo videos. Suck it Cole!
Man, I had a mark viii in highschool..thing was an absolute ripper. Leather and air ride. Got it cheap because it needed compressor and bags. Cool to hear from Don Miller. Big Rusty fan growing up too
Oh I remember the Taurus fiasco, from 4 doors to 2 doors. But ford wanted to use it because it was a huge selling car when it came out. Great video, thanks Mitchell and Logan.
This content about what nascar used to be is absolutely awesome. You can make the episode's way longer because it's worth watching. Keep it up.
Thank you Tony
So good to see Mr Miller again, I dealt with him a number of times during my stay in NASCCAR, a nicer guy you will never find. Cool story, I knew of the KH Lincoln as I had access to the shop and took photos of it back in the day. I did not know the Superbird stroy, shows that there are still stories to dig up. THX
A lincoln based Nascar would have been awesome. I have always liked the mark Lincolns and always thought the 8 would have made a cool Nascar. So seeing that it was a thought at one time was really cool.
I love these type videos. Your passion for racing history is amazing. Please keep making these. Don't forget the car builds as well. I like a variety of content, keeps it from getting stale and redundant. Great job you two.
@Stapleton42 damn right you are. Forgot to mention, I would love to see the deal with the Taurus.
Thank you Chris! We are going to be working on the 632 install in the suburban tomorrow 💪🏻
You are consistently bringing the best content on IRglo, and for that, I thank you.
Thank you for supporting us man
Can't wait to hear the details directly about the Taurus
There would have been a lot more Ford victories to be sure. Mark Martin & Dale Jarrett would have both made bank for a few years. Definitely need the story on that Taurus though...it's definitely an oddball.
The Kranefuss Haas Lincoln in the photos was a beautiful beast. Who remembers Cale’s 98 team shaking down a Cougar?
Oh hell yeah love this fantastic channel and all the adventures and cool stuff you do and share thanks for all the awesome content so far and what’s to come!
Thanks man we are glad you’re on the team!
I don't know how much this thing hitting the track would have changed my life. It wouldn't have convinced me the Taurus wasn't a POS.
As a mark viii owner I’m proud lol, even tho it’s a first Gen it’s still badass, people will forever sleep on these cars and I’m glad they do, cheaper for me to have fun and people aren’t destroying them, bought mine when I was 16 so I’ve had it for 4 years, mark viii “community” is as boomer as you think but it’s better that way
Long time subscriber, first time commenter. Love the content you and Logan put out. My grandfather worked for Texaco, so I grew up around the old Yates 28 show cars. I rep my Stapleton Auto Works Robert Yates style shirt and hat all the time. Thanks for telling the stories of old time NASCAR and keeping the history alive!!
That is awesome!
Awesome content! Love the little known NASCAR stories. Looks like the back glass in that taurus has been modified.
Back in 1997, I was working at a car rental office on Sharon Amity Boulevard in Charlotte, NC (Branch 5311 for any old-school “E” folks). We received a reservation from a NASCAR team for a Ford Taurus. As a race fan...I spoke with the guys that were sent to retrieve the car. They said they were going to use it to make some templates...which I thought was pretty cool. They loaded the rental Taurus on an open trailer...and returned it a few days later (with the same mileage...they didn’t even put a mile on the vehicle).
I really enjoyed this interview! And appreciate your content and how your bringing Nascar history to your channel!
Thanks Michael!
Would love to here about the car outside, awesome content, what if, man it could have been different. Mitch you and Logan are great finding this great information and all the background. Keep it coming! Much love from Kentucky!!! The Taurus was awful grocery gettin mom's car, yuck 🤮 try to look cool in Taurus on the street😂🤣😂🤣 love my Chevy!
Of course I wanna know about the For Taurus sitting outside. It does look a little different in the rear. I think the thunderbird could have been a much better car than it was. They should've given it more power.
I would be beyond ecstatic if iRacing went and scanned that car and put it in the sim. Motorsports preservation work could be done so well with that service.
Great idea
Perfect way to start a Wednesday! such an awesome piece of history and you just know there was more cars like this over the years. i will agree 100000% the Taurus body was awful looking and the Chevy's were always the better looking cars but this one kinda gave me those same vibes the Lumina's did lol got about 13 years on ya but grew up diehard Nascar thru the 80's and 90's so I'm loving every second of this, cant wait for part two where you show the world that special Taurus 🤘
Thanks man! At first glance when I went in the museum the first time I thought this car was a lumina until I looked at it
There's a couple other significant. Mark Viii's ,land speed record tan one, twin supercharged white one Tasca Ford built I believe animal jims black one.. Lowest drag coefficient car that Lincoln has ever produced., I owned a champagne and a silver one, both awesome cars they were like a flying couch with air ride. But parts getting tough to find.
I know the guy who did the 92 Lincoln Mark viii speed record. He’s actually going to do another one soon
I owned a 93 Mark 8, white with a black interior in the 90's and loved it so much I had a chance to buy a 94 Mark 8 in 2009, Black with a grey interior, 63,000 miles for $3200. I snagged it and still have it. Yes parts are hard to come by though.
For just the fun of racing and marketing, surely Ford could've sent a bunch of Lincolns to a shop for homologation specials. And they could've called it the Wily E Coyote. :)
Loving the content as always keep up the great work. Thank you for the hours and hours work you's put into this. It would have been totally different without the Taurus still to this day don't really like the car and its still ugly, and I don't care who you are the older monte carlos will forever be cool.
@Stapleton42 mitch and logan you are welcome
Thank you Jon
Love the channel btw and love how you're teaching the history of a sport I love, last post was definitely not meant to throw shade...Just an old Nascar fan/dude perspective 👍☺
Thanks man!
quite a few years back my family and I got to meet Mr. miller while we were on vacation there. He gave us a little tour around the museum. and brought us outside to show us the drag car that he was going to run one last time if his wife did not find out lol. I wonder if he got to run that car? I May have to go back down there and find out. great guy and awesome museum. we enjoyed it a lot more then the hall of fame.
Growing up and watching Winston cup and having that curiosity of how these men were doing what they did how these cars went so fast just the little things of yes you did this but how does it work why does it work that's how these men directly influenced me to get into mechanical engineering so to actually see and hear some of the stuff that went on behind the scenes is just amazing for me and I would imagine for anybody that grew up in that time frame this is just thank you it's really all I can say to you and them for sharing their stories this is just amazing
This channel really comes up with some gems sometimes. Great job man.
Would love to hear the story of how the Taurus was turned into a stock car. That rear bumper on that Taurus is obviously not that of a production Taurus sedan. It looks like it was an evolution of the previous gen Taurus wagon.
Joel Rodriguez, Ford never produced a V8 RWD two door Taurus and GM never produced a two door V8 RWD Lumina. GM never produced a two door Chevy SS either. Holden produced the Chevy SS cars in Australia,
Killer content Mitch, loving these stories of what coulda been. I really like all the cheated up stuff the old timers used to do, would really like a sit down with 4-5 older guys just talking about cheating and things they got away with!!!! Thanks to you and Logan for all the foot work you put in!!!!!